Eportfolio and learning styles in clinical nursing education

This study reports the use of electronic portfolio in clinical nursing education. The study is part of a larger study investigating learning mediated by ePortfolio. The method takes a phenomenological-hermeneutic approach. The setting was a ten-week clinical course in basic nursing. The participants were 11 first-year students randomly selected. Data were generated by participant observations, interviews and portfolio documents. Findings showed that the ePortfolio was used individually and mostly at home. Using ePortfolio in the ward is more time-consuming. The ePortfolio was used to reflect on practice and one´s own learning process. The principal initiators were emotional involvement in clinical nursing, consciousness of learning through writing; ponder over practice, and a confident and constructive student-preceptor relationship. Inhibitors were vulnerability, a preconception that one learns only in one way, lack of supervision about how to learn. The study showed some but not unambiguous connection between preferred learning styles and ePortfolio use.